World Athletics Indoor Championships: Molly Caudery unable to defend pole vault title with fourth-place finish

The competition was delayed by around 40 minutes because of an issue with the technology that lifts the bar.

Once it resumed, Caudery went over 4.70m – but she could not avoid catching the bar on her way back down in her attempts at 4.75m, despite appearing to have ample height.

“I’m really disappointed – I wanted to come out here after last year and do something and I know that I’m in shape to do something,” Caudery told BBC Sport.

“But that competition was really hard. There were a lot of issues and we were waiting for nearly an hour at one point.

“I’m not putting too much blame on myself. I’m not saying I couldn’t have cleared that next bar because I think I had three good attempts.

“I feel a bit flat, to be honest, after that.”

Caudery failed to qualify for the Olympic final last summer, despite entering Paris 2024 as one of the favourites after a breakthrough season in which she broke Holly Bradshaw’s national record with a vault over 4.92m.

Eager to use that disappointment to fuel a pursuit of more major titles, Caudery made a promising start to 2025 by clearing 4.85m in February.

She took the decision to miss the European indoors two weeks ago to focus fully on her title defence here while she managed a minor calf injury, but will now fix her attention on a gold medal bid at the World Championships in Tokyo in September.